Meet Caitlin

I grew up in Florida with three older brothers and a younger sister. I loved learning. My mother taught my siblings and I the importance of school and led by example, always seeking a new college degree and achieving two masters and a doctorate in my lifetime. With her example, I went into kindergarten eager to learn and loving school. As much as I loved learning, school became too easy and boring. My classes were very robotic. I’d go to school, take notes, listen to teachers talk at me, go home to do homework and repeat the next day. As a teacher my goal is to set the example of the importance of school that my mother instilled in me and to keep the love of learning going.

My motivation for entering the internship at Nemours was that the ultimate goal of each of these children is to be able to go back to school after their treatments at Nemours are complete. They will be going back into a classroom, potentially my classroom, with unique needs and I feel like I needed to know where they are coming from to know how to serve their needs in a traditional classroom. Beyond my initial motivation, I’ve learned how much these children crave learning. When I enter a room with a lesson, their faces light up. They are willing participants in their learning and it reminds me of why I wanted to become a teacher in the beginning. Children in the hospital face a lot of challenges and by providing educational services, I’m able to give them a distraction from some of those challenges as well as promote educational development and prepare them to eventually go back to school.